


how sweet of you

by forestpenguin



Series: the moment flowers bloom [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, Jacket Sharing is so Yesterday, Prompt Fill, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-07-01 07:10:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forestpenguin/pseuds/forestpenguin
Summary: For all intents and purposes, it's a solo mission. Cassian will walk off the ship alone - Jyn will be the songbird in his ear, of course, but she won't be there to watch his back.She will have to send something else to watch over him for her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> anon requested saccharine: "excessively sweet or sentimental."

Jyn huffs out a breath, drumming the table with her fingertips. Her other hand idly flicks through her datapad. Lines of text she’s already memorized, punctuation included, scroll by.

The code she’s been working at since they landed lurks in another open tab. A particular section of it refuses to run, despite her dirtiest glares.

Naturally, the best course of action is to ignore the problem. Eventually, the solution will come to her - ideally, the problem will disappear. And so she rereads the mission debriefing.

> _Praesitlyn’s semi arid areas contain sands which experience frequent bout of saltation…_

Jyn presses her mouth into the palm of her free hand, still scrolling. Puffing her cheeks, she frowns at the typo for the tenth time.

She perks up at the sound of faint footsteps, clicking her screen off.

There’s only one other person on this ship. He knows how to walk softly, just as she; she knows never to let her senses rest, as he; but they’ve recently developed a common courtesy.

When the ears of enemies are distant, they walk, well,

like normal people.

(Not children taught to survive.)

She hears them stop at the doorway, hears the faint rustle of fabric as he leans against the frame.

“How’s the slicing going?”

When Jyn looks up her eyes land on his face.

Save for a few strands of hair falling stubbornly in his eyes, his hair is combed and parted neatly. A familiar enough sight, cleaner and softer than what she’s used to.

Her gaze dips, travels over his features. Cassian manages to trick even the harshest illuminators into flattering his appearance. Jyn’s begun to suspect every angle suits him. If she had the spare processing power, she could do the math.

Instead, she contents herself with trying to understand his expression. Cassian’s gaze sweeps the floor and fixates on an oil stain partially obscured by his right foot. The thick curtain of lashes is no less sweet of a sight than his sparkling eyes, but Jyn finds herself… wondering. She can’t name the feeling, can’t name the look in his eyes or her heart.

Cassian briefly looks up, curious, and a shrill warning tingles her spine.

_Shavit._

She remembers he’d asked her a question. Her first answer is a half hearted dismissal. Then:

“Well, it’s being uncooperative.”

Cassian sighs, tugging at his collar. “You could say that again.”

Jyn gives him a tight lipped grin, mind still working at the present problem.

To someone who doesn’t know Cassian, which is most people, they wouldn’t see anything unusual in his reserved stature. It’s funny, where most see the absence of feeling, Jyn finds the abundance of it.

It’s his only tell: avoiding people’s eyes.

Never when it matters; and the steely gaze of a commanding officer, a soldier, an agent, comes as naturally to him as breathing.

But… Jyn, Bodhi, Draven, Leia. The only ones Cassian can trust enough not to stab him when he’s not looking. For them, he allows his concentration to slip and his eyes to fall shut, even if just for the briefest of moments.

And he’s doing it now.

She can’t name the expression that’s hiding in the warm brown depths of his eyes. It’s something uniquely him. He hasn’t yet donned the face of his next cover, and she’s free to witness cracks in the mask of the solider, sniper, spy. Jyn’s allowed a peek into the bashful, nervous something Cassian might’ve been.

(Why is he nervous?)

 _Might be,_  around her, but Jyn can’t allow that train of thought. Not when he’s about to leave on a mission, alone - with her in his ear, of course, but not watching his back with her blaster.

(She won’t be able to reach him. Defend him.)

He’s fumbling with the buttons on his sleeves. Only then does Jyn notice his outfit. He looks great, the freshly pressed shirt and minty soap doing wonders.

Jyn’s struck by a sudden realization.

She’s  _seeing_ Cassian for the first time.

Oh, he’d bared his heart for her long ago in the hangar. Even earlier - escaping Eadu’s atmo.

She’s seen him all cleaned up before, but he’s usually wearing someone else’s face. Or worse, drenched in the smell of standard Imperial detergent, the greyish greens wiping all lively colour from his presence.

But both? At the same time - and with no ghosts under his eyes?  

“Should I keep the sleeves like this or roll them up?”

“Uhm…” Jyn wets her lips, rising to her feet as she thinks. Rolled up sleeves allow for more freedom, but buttoned ones can hide at least four kinds of weapons. _Kriff_ torn seams - it’s always better to have a wrist gauntlet with a blade at the ready. The additional coverage is a bonus. 

“That looks good,” she shrugs. Jyn stops by the door’s panel, not quite sure whether to continue staring at the buttons now that he’s dropped his arms to his sides. Cassian’s fingers skim over a hidden holster.

His chrono chirps - a gleaming little trinket saved for infiltrations like these. Cassian’s swapped his usual datapad for an actual wrist-chrono to fit in with Praesitlyn’s thriving upper middle class. Not for long, just enough time for Cassian to access their target’s mainframe and Jyn to sneak in virtually.

 _Right_  - the chrono’s beep means there’s five minutes left before Cassian has to leave.

Cassian straightens, leaning away from the doorway, and Jyn takes in a slow breath. The pale blue of his dress shirt suits him nicely, and everything he’s wearing seems tailor made, all the way to his shiny black shoes.

(There’s four pins, a blade, and a transponder in the soles.)

She knows Cassian is watching her, sees him fiddle with his collar under her scrutiny. Jyn’s gaze is drawn to the exposed skin of his neck at the movement.

Something seems amiss.

Jyn’s gaze returns to his face, the slight quirk of his mouth seeming to ask if he’s passed her inspection. She opens her mouth to say something, and suddenly the revelation hits her.

“You need a scarf.”

Cassian furrows his eyebrows.

“It’s pretty mild out there.” There’s no accusation in the statement; no questioning of her ability. Merely an invitation for her to clarify further.  

(It’s a running joke - anything compared to Hoth is mild.)

The ship is drafty in the way most salvaged ships are, but it isn’t unbearable. A half second passes before Jyn moves to take her scarf off. It pulls strands of hair loose from her bun as it unwinds.

“It might get dusty out there. Praesitlyn’s dry season usually starts in a couple weeks. But thanks to, well,  _you know,_ the seasons are kriffed up.”

Jyn licks her lips. She knows she’s being reasonable, but the way her scarf limply dangles from her fingers rankles at her. Jyn makes a fist around the thin fabric, heart pounding for no good reason. She wonders how long she can hold it out between them before Cassian calls out her stupidity.

Then, Cassian’s fingers, hesitant but soft, reach out and take the scarf.

“You’re right,” he murmurs. Jyn lets go slowly, watches as he reverently smooths out the fabric before looping it around his neck. The strip of skin exposed by the low collar - it’s a normal fit, she’s used to Cassian layering his jackets - disappears under the fabric.

The dark blue scarf matches his outfit perfectly. She’s tempted to say something cliche. Jyn bites her lip. 

Cassian looks every part the young man headed to another day at work. The scarf is a homely, but practical, touch.

(With a start, she realizes if she’s the one sending Cassian off, waiting for him to come back at the end of the work day, then on some worlds that would make her…)  

She can’t meet his eyes, suddenly, feeling his gaze warm and appreciative on hers. She has enough courage to stare at Cassian’s left shoulder. Wisps of dark hair curl over the worn fabric, Cassian’s Imperial-reg haircut having grown out over the past few months.

The scarf’s hitched itself over the collar.

Before Jyn she can think otherwise she presses up on her toes and tenderly pulls the scarf over the front of his shirt. Her fingers twitch, deciding not to smooth out the wrinkles left in her wake.

Hesitant to see the aftermath, she leans back before any emotions register on Cassian’s face.

Jyn almost doesn’t hear Cassian’s  _thank you._

She looks up at him warily. Jyn’s surprised to find him staring at his feet once again, this time scuffing the oil stain with his toes.

“No problem,” she mouths the standard response.

He meets her gaze. They can’t be silent for more than a second, but a whirlwind of thoughts strike Jyn at once.

(Somewhere in the corners of her brain, she realizes where she’d kriffed up the code. Perfect - so by the time he’s set up the connection, she’ll be ready.)

Jyn can’t stop searching his eyes. For… something. An answer. A question. She isn’t even sure if she’s looking for something or just trying to understand what’s already there already: a new puzzle for her to solve.

It’s not an unpleasant one, though. Just… unusual.

For one, nobody ever stares at Cassian Andor. Their eyes glaze right over the man in the darkness - which only makes sense. Spies aren’t supposed to stand out.

Sure, he draws attention while speaking at the front of the room, all ramrod straight posture and gravelly tone. She’s had the privilege of hearing him chat up Imperials through the earpiece that’s currently sitting on the table beside her datapad. They, too, can fall victim to Cassian in his most charming disposition.

But how about the mundane moments? Where Cassian is just Cassian, not Captain or Officer or whoever else the galaxy needs him to be? When he’s piloting and the act of mentally crunching numbers draws lines between his scrunched eyebrows? When he’s fiddling with the rusty circuits of a broken droid and whispers encouragement to its deaf auditory processors?

Apparently nobody cares for the spy living in the shadows, much less admiration.

(Except Jyn.)

The chrono chirps again. Cassian’s eyes remain soft and pleasant, but the light sparkle in them hardens into a determined glint.

Jyn swallows a sigh.

“Good luck. You’ll fit right in - you look great,” she adds softly. For a moment she entertains the notion of brushing her fingertips over the buttons on his sleeve, finding his hand and squeezing it tightly. She decides against it.

The small smile they share as he walks off the ramp will have to be enough.


	2. Chapter 2

Her datapad blinks, lights shifting like an exhale from yellow to green. Residual tension evaporates from Jyn’s hunched shoulders. 

“Done!” 

She knows Cassian’s end is synced with the display, but with the potential for lagging in the data transfer, she can’t risk him disengaging the drive too early.

“Great.” Cassian’s voice crackles in her ear. “Time to go home.” His speech is a little muffled, presumably from the scarf covering his mouthpiece. Hearing his voice so quiet against her ear without him being nearby feels odd. The softness evokes old memories of wind whipping around them, carrying the distant scream of blasterfire. His steady warmth despite the sickening chill.  _Leave it, leave it, let’s go._

Jyn quickly dismisses the train of thought with a wave of her hand, and taps at her screen. Another loading bar pops up in response.

“Downloading local copy.”

Cassian doesn’t respond, but she’s reassured by the rustle of his breath against fabric. He doesn’t have the luxury of responding freely like she does. 

Her freedom is still limited, she thinks, setting her datapad on the table and stretching her arms above her head. Craning her neck, she squints at the pipes and wires running across the ceiling, realizing how dry her eyes are. She’d been stuck in this seat ever since Cassian walked right into the wings of the galaxy’s largest communication center. 

Jyn rises, clutching the arms of her seat, and swings her feet to the ground. 

Arching her back and rolling her ankles, she peers over her sore shoulder at her datapad lying on the table. Still loading. 

If Cassian were on the ship with her he’d say something about her acting like a sleepy tooka-cat. The though brings a small smile to her face as she grabs her canister of water off the table and stalks to the cockpit, comm still active. 

It’ll take Cassian half a standard hour to come back. It’ll only take her half the time to prep the ship for departure. 

She can afford to wait. Her stomach rumbles in agreement. Jyn’d been so absorbed guiding Cassian through the data transfer - not that he needed the help, but she couldn’t just sit idly - she hadn’t consumed anything more than a few sips of water. 

An uneasy feeling pools at the base of Jyn’s stomach. 

In Kay’s absence, Cassian had calculated that if everything went wrong, it would still take officials at least two hours to trace the heavily encrypted stream of data to their ship, and Jyn - with Cassian - would be out of Praesitlyn’s atmosphere. 

The best way to fight off unwarranted anxiety, she’s learned, is to stay busy. 

The ship hums to life under her fingertips.

“Good day.”

Jyn smiles a little, recognizing the lilting voice Cassian saves for pleasantries and soothing frazzled children. She doesn’t hear the edge that differentiates it from what he uses to politely address Imperial officers, and gathers he must be talking to another employee.

It’s the tiniest of differences, in all honesty. Jyn wonders if Cassian knows. The tell’s subtle enough it wouldn’t be a concern, and she doubts anyone else would ever notice. Even the ISB. 

They might be the best at breaking people and reading the pieces, but nobody knows Cassian like she does. And even Jyn isn’t quite sure how well she knows him. Perhaps he forces the additional edge as a good Imperial citizen’s annoyance with checkpoints and bureaucracy.

She can’t really tell the difference.

For someone raised to be wary of anything that breathes - and many that don’t - Cassian’s layers of masks and shields should be disconcerting. 

They were, once.

They are to most.

If there’s one sure fact in her life, Jyn knows Cassian never lies to her. Hells, as she thinks about it, he’d never promised to get her father off Eadu safely. Never said he hadn’t believed in her. He only gave her that unnerving stare of his and said her testimony wouldn’t hold water with the Alliance.

A tricky one, that man. 

Her comm chirps, the sound echoing all the way from the tiny kitchenette. The download’s complete. Jyn chews at her lip. She could immediately forward it to the Alliance - Kay, specifically - but they’re still on the fringes of Imperial space.

She can afford to wait. 

Drumming her fingertips across the console, she glances at the ship’s chrono. Twenty minutes. 

“Identification, please.” 

The sound is off but the voice is unmistakable. Nothing to be worried about. She’d counted the number of troopers stationed on Cassian’s path back to the ship long before they’d arrived. 

Still, she bristles at the trooper’s voice. 

Jyn holds her breath, counting seconds by Cassian’s breathing.

“All okay?” He sounds mildly concerned.

Jyn hisses slowly, and looks up at the viewport. Nothing to see but the empty spaceport and mesas jutting up into the horizon. The city lies behind her. 

“No problem,” she hears, and wonders if Cassian’s intending it for her. “Take your time.”

“Those docs are secure,” Jyn says aloud, mostly to reassure herself. “I made them myself, and ran them through a reader thre-”

Her connection cuts out. 

* * *

Cassian watches the trooper run his card through the reader for the third time when Jyn’s voice cuts off mid sentence.

He blinks but doesn’t react. 

The reader chirps. “All good,” the trooper replies, handing him his scandocs. “Apologies for the delay.” 

Cassian shoves the docs into his pocket and shrug. “Good day.” 

Light glints off the troopers helmet as it turns to look outside. “I’d beg to differ.”

Outside, the formerly bright blue skies of Praesitlyn’s spring are now a greyish red. The sector’s star glows with an additional blurred halo, and the city shines with amber light.

“Shavit.”

The shadows of an oncoming sandstorm.

“Wasn’t in the forecast. If you’re headed out, you might wanna stay here.”

“My-” Cassian starts, then glances at the trooper. “My wife’s waiting for me. We live offworld.”

“Then you should leave before it starts.”

Already the workers around them start pulling masks and scarves over their mouths, and others entering the building leave faint footprints in their wake. 

Cassian nods, pulling his scarf to his mouth. He’s suddenly presented with a scent he knows intimately but cannot place. Jyn’s scarf, he remembers. It smells like her, somehow. Not because of the faded detergent, but he feels as though she’s with him, here.  

Not alone, wondering.

“That’s the plan.” 

* * *

Jyn convinces herself not to panic for a standard hour. 

An hour gives her thirty minutes of freedom before Imperials start firing at their loading ramp. 

Thirty minutes is enough time to wreak chaos and escape. 

_Worst case scenario._

She fidgets in the pilot’s chair, stabbing at her datapad and tweaking her earpiece, waiting to hear Cassian’s voice. 

Cassian is on his way, she reminds herself. _No reason to worry._

Out her viewport, the clear blue skies are muted, and Jyn’s beginning to suspect a storm is brewing. It could be the cause for their frazzled connection, but the weather isn’t bad enough to cut the signal.

But she can’t entertain the other option.

Cassian is fine, she tells herself.  _He can manage._

Her free hand reaches under her collar regardless, and fishes out her crystal.

_He’s fine. _He’s managed without me, all these years.__

Don’t think about any other possibility.

_Don’t think about all the close calls. Don’t think about all his scars._

Don’t think about the scandocs. Don’t think about them failing inspection. Don’t think about what happens to people who are caught with fake docs. 

_Don’t._

Jyn grits her teeth. 

“Karking-” she groans, glaring at the comm still blinking a stubborn red. 

She shouldn’t be panicking. She’s been through worse. 

_Don’t think about the cave._

_Don’t think about the bunker._

She lifts her head and wills herself to stare at the sunlight filtering through the foggy sky. Clenches her fist around the kyber, relying on its dull edges to carve sense into her.

She’s been through worse. He’s been through worse. 

_He’ll be fine._

But what if he’s been caught?

The traitorous thought sneaks through her mental defenses, like the spaceport crew weaving between loaded transports and stacks of crates. Eyelids suddenly hot and heavy, she lets the kyber fall from her grip and puts her face in her hands. 

_If he gets caught, it’s her fault. Such a simple mission, and if his cover’s been blown… it’s her fault._

Sitting here won’t do him any good. Jyn’s finger twitches, her blaster firmly in her thigh holster. Her truncheons are under her bunk and she can just as easily slice into the network, now that Cassian’s accessed it, and infect it with a bug that’ll raise alarms but hide their trail. 

She could look for him. 

She could. _She shouldn’t._

She’s the only one with the data, and she needs to make sure it gets to the Rebellion.

She can fly out, send Kay the data, and come back for him. With a vengeance. 

But he’ll be fine. He’s on his way.

_He can handle himself._

He’s never been caught - stayed caught, that is.

He’ll find a way.

_He’s told her about the lullaby._

Jyn’s gut turns. She’ll find him before he reached for the pill. 

They’ve been through worse, together.

_He came back on Jedha._

_He came back on Eadu._

_He came back on the tower._

He’ll come back for her.

He always does. 

He must.

* * *

Cassian pounds the keypad with the side of his fist. He’s reached the spaceport before the sandstorm, but clearly the karking keys have another idea. 

He tries again, stabbing in the four-letter keycode.

_Why hasn’t Jyn unlocked it?_

With a whoosh, the loading ramp finally slides open. Cassian strides on board. “Jyn?”

Cassian swings his bag off his shoulder and is rewarded with a shower of sand. He looks down. Dusty footprints trail behind him out over the ramp.

He shuts the ramp, and as it falls shut, swipes at the front of his shirt. Puffs of reddish sand swirl into the air. Clearly he’d accumulated more sand on him than he’d initially thought. 

When he looks up, Jyn’s appeared in the doorway. 

“Let’s go.”

Her reply is a terse nod.

Cassian’s gaze flickers to her white-knuckled grip on the frame, the tension rolling off her in waves. 

Jyn whips around on her heel. Even after she’s left for the cockpit, he’s still staring at the empty doorway. Looking at her. He sees the downwards tug of her lips, her strained features... 

Underneath him the ship’s undercarriage clicks, landing gear retracting into the the body, bringing him back to the present.

Cassian shakes his head.  

 

* * *

Jyn finds her hand still on the lever, long after she’d pushed them into hyperspace. 

The whirling streaks of light blur together.

She blinks, hastily, eyes starting to sting.

She’s startled by the sudden discomfort - it bothering her as much as the emotion swelling in her chest.

_Why?_

As if stricken, she jolts up from the seat.   

 

* * *

 Cassian’s frowning at the bag between his knees, pale red flecks dusting the floor in a ring around his feet. He swipes at his shirt and still more sand falls off, the particles glowing in the light.

“Hey,” Jyn offers. 

Cassian looks up at her, bent pose straightening as he does so. The focused look of concern dissolves, his expression warming.

The tightness in Jyn’s chest begins to subside.

“Sorry I kept you waiting.” Cassian rises, the movement putting him under the full scrutiny of the ship’s artificial light. Jyn feels the scratch of a snort at the sight of his cheeks and clothes dusted with rouge. He grimaces. 

“I’m, ah, going to the sonic. I’ll brief you later?” 

Jyn nods, leaning against the doorway. 

Cassian brushes past her. 

She gets a whiff of the cologne he’d used that morning. Nothing like the Imperial fare - a subtle, natural scent that manages to suit both his cover and himself. 

He stills.

She raises her gaze from the dust encrusted buttons on his shirt. The gentle warmth of his gaze would usually make her look away, but here, with her fingertips brushing against the cuff of his shirt, she’s just glad to see him.

Alive.

They’re frozen together for a mere breath.

“You alright?” 

Jyn nods.

“You were late, that’s all.” 

Merely late doesn’t seem to satisfy the emotions swirling in her gut, but Jyn’s vocabulary has nothing more to offer. Her gaze dips once more, but she feels Cassian’s eyes on the top of her head. 

“Well, I’m here now, so no more peace and quiet for you.”

She looks up to the faint smile playing at the corners of his lips. Notices it doesn’t reach his eyes, which are still travelling over her face. 

She can’t hold his gaze any longer, afraid he’ll peel away all her layers and read her for the foolish, frightened girl she’s always been.

Jyn smiles in kind, eyes on her scarf around his shoulders.

“Go clean up.”

His shoulders twitch in a slight, comical shrug before he steps away. She watches him consider tossing his bag into their too-full sanitizer before setting it down. 

She turns. Perhaps some food will ease her nerves _._   

 

* * *

Cassian gently pulls the scarf taut. It’s dried nicely in the sanitizer - he’d put it in with his sandy clothes, instead of the bag - and the movement reveals no more sand. 

A smile touches his lips. 

Jyn’s forethought saved him a lot of trouble. He doubts he would’ve been able to make it through the oncoming sandstorm without it. 

He studies the scarf’s stitching by the light of the ‘fresher. Even at its age, the scarf’s deep blue-grey hue survived the wash. 

Cassian runs his thumb over patches of light blue fuzz. Apart from being worn in places, the scarf is in great condition.

Flipping the scarf over, he runs his fingers along the fabric. 

It snags on his nail. What he’d feared: a torn seam. He rubs the loose thread between his fingers.

Nothing he couldn’t fix.  _Better now before it gets worse._

He has no idea where Jyn got the scarf or whether it had sentimental value, but he doesn’t recall her ever leaving Base One without it. He remembers Jedha, and the scarf pulled over her dark hair. 

Cassian glances up at the ‘fresher’s tiny mirror, sees the thoughts playing in his eyes. 

He gets to work.  

 

* * *

An embarrassingly long stretch of time passes before Jyn realizes the faint buzz of the sonic has stopped. Cassian never takes this long to dress.

She switches the stovetop off. 

She’d forgotten to ask if he’d been injured. The unsettling weight reforms at the base of her stomach.

_He’s fine._

He’d looked concerned, but it could just be frustration with the sand. Still, she has no idea what sort of weather he’d walked through to get back to the ship.

(To her.)

She leaves the kitchenette intending to knock on the ‘fresher door, but is instead surprised by Cassian sitting at the table the same way she’d been fiddling with her datapad before he’d left.

A datapad and a medkit lay on the table. Cassian’s hunched over in his seat, clutching at a length of fabric.

Jyn frowns, stepping closer. She realizes the box is far too small to be a medkit. Its filled with spools of varying colours: black, red, a sickening grey-green. A spool of dark blue sits just by Cassian’s hand, a length of string uncoiled across the table. 

It’s the repair kit.

With Saw’s cadre they’d made do with the same thick black thread and snipping from old rags, threaded through the same rusted silver needle. The innocuous nature of the needle as a tool, not a weapon, had proven useful in several situations.

It hadn’t been until she’d ran across Cassian’s little bag, hidden behind the mirror of the ‘fresher, that she’d realized there were more options from the usual. The blue spool doesn’t match the rest, and she doesn’t need to peer into the bag to know it contains a wide collection of fasteners, plucked from clothes ruined long ago.

Her gaze sweeps over the table in seconds, then lingers on Cassian’s hands.

The brief, teasing chirp of  _too busy to chat, are you?_  dies in her throat when she recognizes the fabric.

Her scarf.

He’s mending her scarf.

Her lips part in an attempt to facilitate some coherent speech but the only sound that escapes her is a faint gasp.  

Cassian knows she’s there, with her shadow draping itself over his shoulders, but he’s either choosing to ignore her or lost in focus.

Jyn’s about to turn back when Cassian motions for her to sit beside him. As she does, she watches him pull his hand away from the stitching with a sense of finality. 

He careful knots the end of the string, then adds a finishing stitch over to secure it in place. Jyn’s enraptured, watching him - as she usually is - and at how gently he handles her scarf. She’s careful not to bump his shoulder and ruin his work, but can’t help but watch closely.

He neatly snips off the extra thread, and it’s only when he sets the scissors back on the table that he looks at her.

With a surprisingly bashful expression. He blinks quickly, as if surprised she’s sitting right beside him, even though he’d asked her to do so.

Frankly, Jyn feels the same way.  

* * *

He’d told her to sit, unable to say much else. Cassian wanted her to know she wasn’t being ignored, just... 

He stares at the scarf.

“Your scarf, it... it got the worst of the sand.” He looks up at her, sees the confusion in her eyes. “I put it in the sanitizer.”

He hands the scarf to her, and Jyn stares at his hands for a moment before taking it. She lifts it up to inspect his handiwork, no doubt.

Cassian swallows, feeling her scrutiny of the fabric on his own skin.

“It was torn. So I stitched it back up - it should be good, now.”

“Oh.” 

He wonders what he’d done to deserve such clipped statements. Not that Jyn was ever talkative, but where he usually finds soft warmth he only feels cool durasteel.

“You don’t mind, right? It looks all ok?”

Jyn’s startled by his question, it seems, and he wonders how anguished he looks.

“Mind what?” 

“The... I... you aren’t bothered I messed with it, right? I should've asked, sorry." 

“Oh - oh! No, not at all,” Jyn stammers. "It's lovely." 

She presses the scarf to her chest, where its warmth brushes familiarly against her collarbone. “No, it’s great. I’d been meaning to fix it, but kept forgetting.” 

"Ah.”

He’s not quite sure what to say next, and busies himself with packing away his mending kit. He’s painfully aware of Jyn’s eyes on him, and not less than once does he drop the spool, letting it unwind all over the table.   

* * *

Jyn unfolds her scarf and loops it around her neck. She hadn’t realized how bare she felt, wearing just a shirt without her scarf, the cord of her necklace so obviously exposed. How unsafe she’d felt until this moment.

Which is ridiculous because she’d been alone on the ship, and more than perfectly capable of defending herself.

 _You’re growing soft,_  her mind tells her in Saw’s voice.  _You’re getting too used to kindness, to protection._

Not that Saw wasn’t ever kind or protective - even his abandonment, she’d once admitted to Cassian, was an act rooted in those emotions.

 _He could’ve told me,_  she’d said then.  _But he just didn’t know how._

There’s a foreign warmth clinging to her scarf, likely from the sanitizer, but she can’t help but wonder if it’s from Cassian’s hands.

She shuts down the train of thought immediately, instead electing to watch Cassian neatly rearrange the spools to fit in the scissors. His movements are so sure it’s obvious he’s done this a hundred times before. She smiles a little, at the thought of Cassian sewing together his old parka.

 _That thing’s held together by hope and sweat,_  she’d teased him, the last time he wore it. He’d merely raised his eyebrow at her.

_Perhaps. But it’s cozy._

She wonders if it’s from his past. It’s not standard issue, like the rest of his wardrobe - which seems to be a cobbling together of all the various sectors of the Rebel Alliance milita and an outfit or two nicked from high society closets. 

“Something wrong?”

“What?” she asks, around the fabric. Out of habit, she’d pulled it up past her nose while in thought.

His gaze flickers to her hand.

“Oh, nothing.” she sniffs. “Smells different. Clean, actually. It really needed a wash.”

Cassian grins a little at that, and the unease in her stomach has softened into something palatable yet still unfamiliar. Her own smile is hidden by the scarf, so she drops it and sets her hand in her lap.

They stare at each other for a moment.

“Hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“Good, I started reheating some food, we can just-”

Jyn moves to rise, but suddenly finds herself without the energy to do it. 

“You alright, Jyn?”

"I..." 

She's still queasy. There's nothing else to explain it.

"I haven't eaten all day." 

Cassian stares at her.

"I was gone for  _hours_ , Jyn, and you didn't make something for yourself?" 

She holds his gaze. He looks concerned, more than angry - sounds worried more than chastising. She's not sure what she hates more. 

"I did, now, so we can eat together, I just... didn't... think to eat while you were gone... because... I was... worried, I guess." Jyn finds herself still unable to name the emotion that engulfed her in those dreadful minutes. 

"I'm sorry I was late," Cassian says gently. His hand hovers over hers, and she flips her palms upwards to clasp it. 

"There was nothing you could've done. I just don't know why... we've gone through worse..."

Cassian hardly has his cover blown, but the times he had were some of the worst. They'd have to fight their way to each other, and those were only on missions where Jyn's skills were needed. Most of the time, she was with the Pathfinders. 

Blissfully unaware.

He covers her hand with his, leaving them sitting together, knees touching and hands in Jyn's lap.

It's a tear, is what it is. Like the scarf.

A small tug, ripping away a stitch, and left unnoticed, grows wider. Unravels.

Now Jyn comes undone.

Her shoulders sag forward, her chin finding Cassian's shoulder. He mirrors her movement, letting go of her hands to hold her shoulders.

“I got so scared,” she says into his shirt. “I don’t even know why. Imagine if... I would've been useless. I would've put you in more danger.” 

Cassian would be quite content to caress her face gently, push her hair out of the way and shush her fears, but he's too afraid of what damage his hands will bring.

"Caring isn't a weakness, Jyn," he says, looking at the lights blinking slowly on the wall behind her. "It's why we're all here." 

"I panicked."

"I've panicked before too."

"As a kid. I did too, but we don't... now... we can't afford to panic."

"No, as an adult. Even now. Even in the field." 

Jyn pulls away, hair late to fall back over her shoulders.

"Even after Scarif?'

The name is hardly spoken between them. Only recently have they broached the topic, slowly and steadily, like sewing.

 _Mend the tear,_ he thinks.

"Especially after Scarif."

He'd felt so much relief on that beach. Bliss, even, and to be torn away from the light and spat out in a mess of hot seawater and blood, he's still unsure on his feet. Where he belongs. The spy-now-hero. 

Hope reinvigorated, of course, but the doubt remains. If the Death Star wasn't his ultimate mission, what other horrors remain to be seen? 

 _Be fought,_ he reminds himself. He won't just stand by and watch. 

"I'm sorry, you fixed this for me and I returned the favour by reminding you-"

"J-Jyn, stop. Stop. Remember Mirial? How I ruined the mood?"

She's still holding him, he realizes, because her hands make fists over his knees.  She pulls them away quickly, though.

"After the victory party, you-"

"Panicked, yes."

"I thought you'd seen something."

Cassian nods. "I let you believe that. I'm a terrible liar, otherwise. With you, especially." 

Jyn smiles, albeit sadly.

"You helped me sort it out, then. That there was nothing more than old ghosts and awful thoughts. So don't feel guilty now." 

(The first stitch.)

"We're in this all the way," he reminds her. "Both of us. The mission comes first but we can't finish it if we're not put together, okay?"

It was the hardest lesson he had to learn. Taught in a medbay, with Draven's usually expressionless face riddled with worry lines.

 _Never again,_ he thinks.

(And the second.)

Jyn nods.

"I'm... glad you're safe. Kark that sandstorm," she adds. "Made an easy mission worse." 

"I'm glad I had that." Cassian says, nodding to the scarf, and Jyn grins. "That was smart." 

Jyn doesn't know what to say, the only thing gnawing at her stomach now being hunger. Cassian's eyes are everywhere but on her, and she's almost glad for it. Fears aside, sitting this close together...

she wants more, she realizes, and for once the thought doesn't scare her. 

 _We all need somebody,_ Saw once told her. _I had Steela. You had your parents. War took them both. Now we have each other. We can't lose any more._

She had, Jyn thinks, but she's found someone else. She might lose yet more, but there's a newfound faith struck with in her.

The feeling is markedly different, caught somewhere between the safety of her Papa's arms and the thrill she'd first felt with Hadder. 

She knows what it is, now. 

Jyn doesn't know how to ask him, meet him halfway.

"Food's getting cold," she starts, making a face. "Rations aren't even good warm, anyways." 

"Then let's go eat."

Cassian rises first, and extends a hand to help Jyn up.

Normally she'd wave him off, swing her feet to the ground and get up on her own, but today -

she meets him halfway, and reaches for his hand.

(They'd have to tie the final knot, much later.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter did EVERYTHING in its power to avoid being written, it's been a draft for literal months but I was determined not to exit 2018 without posting this so here we are! Happy Holidays :)  
> (reposted bc AO3 was being funky)


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